Mademoiselle Daae Is Dead
by Clara Stone
Summary: Basically, pay no heed to the title. Just read it. It's getting there that's half the fun and, if you know how I write, you never know what's going on until the end!


Mademoiselle Daae Is Dead

Disclaimer: I don't own Christine, Raoul, Erik or Nadir. We all know who they belong to. I made up Annette, Christine's maid, though—is she mine?!?!

A/N: Okay, a little more…I don't know… then what the title says. If you know how I write, there's _always_ a twist. Chance is there's one in this! I wrote this while having a migraine on _Reality Issues_. The next chapter of that will be up soon, if any one cares!

Raoul felt his knees begin to shake. And as the casket of his beloved was lowered into that gaping black hole, he collapsed next to the fresh gravestone, sobbing. He wanted to follow her down, down, and lie with her forever, under six feet of dirt. He would have done it, really, he would have! But his legs weren't working right; he couldn't stand up to jump. Maybe they were broken, these legs that had never failed him before. How ironic that they now cursed him when he needed them most. 

__

This is all his_ fault_, the Vicomte thought, his lips forming a silent sneer at the very thought of his enemy. _Erik. He is to blame for the accident—the murder! None of this would have happened if it weren't for that small but venomous sentence in the paper: 'Erik is dead.' _

True, the events that occurred at the Opera House and in that terrible house below it had weakened her. Her maid had told him that every night she did not sleep; instead, she skulked around her flat in the same tragic manner as Lady Macbeth, crying ceaselessly. But during the day, or at least when she was with him, she always managed to smile through her tears. Raoul knew everything would get better eventually.

Then came that dreadful day. Raoul dropped his paper the moment he had read it, and had a carriage race to Christine's home. He found her staring at the same sentence he had just run from, her face dry and her eyes no longer red. She saw him standing in her doorway and smiled at him. 

"There is no more for you to fear, Raoul. 'Erik is dead.' I killed him,"—only then did her lip start to tremble—"and now I must finish what I started."

"You are not going back there Christine. Why would you? To see how a man who looked like he was dead in life looks when he really is dead?" 

He was getting angry, but Christine seemed absolutely resolute. "I am going with or without your permission, Raoul. You are not my husband yet and you have no right to order me." She turned her head away from him and looked out a window. "He deserves whatever I can give him in death that I couldn't give him in life." 

Raoul said not another thing that entire visit. He simply looked at her as she continued to stare out the window. Eventually, Christine got up and walked right past him, getting ready to leave. He didn't stop her as she put on her cloak and didn't silence her when she turned to him and said, "It will probably take me a few days to settle everything. If it does as I expect, I will be sleeping there." With that, she left him.

He didn't see her for a few days. Every night Raoul pictured her sleeping in the same house as a dead man. He hated it! Four days after she had left, he began to get ready to go to the Opera House and bring her back. But as he was leaving, a message was delivered from her. Christine was home, it said. She wanted him to come see her at her home, before she went back.

Half an hour later, he stormed into her kitchen where she sat eating lunch. "You are _not_ going back there Christine!"

She looked up at him and smiled, obviously ignoring his outburst. "Hello, Raoul. It's nice to see you too. Did you miss me?"

"Christine," he said, sliding into a chair next to hers, "you have been there for four days! What more could you possible have to do?"

"Has it truly been four days?" she laughed.

"Christine," Raoul said, growing angry. "I refuse to let you go back once again!"

"I'm afraid you have no say in the matter, dear. Nadir will be here with a carriage to take me back soon. We could have had more time together except you took quite a long time getting here." Christine noticed the confused look on Raoul's face. "Nadir, you know, Erik's Persian friend? Do not tell me that you went all the way to the fifth cellar without even asking your companion's name!" She turned her head away in an obvious attempt to conceal rolling her eyes. 

Raoul was silent for a moment. Her words had stung him; the Christine he knew would never have been so harsh to him. She was too…timid to be! Eventually, he spoke again. 

"How are the…arrangements…coming?"

"Fine, thank you for asking," she replied. "It has been difficult packing everything away—Erik requested that we leave no trace of him in the Opera House—but with Nadir's help I think we can finish by the end of the month."

"The end of the month! And you will be staying there until it is finished?"

"No, from now on I believe I will be coming home to sleep, and will go back every day. Except Wednesdays and Sundays—those days I will spend with you. Does that suit you?"

Raoul thought for a moment. "I suppose… And Erik?"

"What of Erik? Erik was taken care of long before I got there." The doorbell rang then. "That should be Nadir. I must leave you now, Raoul. I will see you on Sunday," she said, walking out of the kitchen, "after Mass."

Three weeks passed in the fashion she had described. Every night he would receive a letter telling him that she was safely home. And each Wednesday and Sunday (after Mass) he would take her out for lunch and dinner. They would spend the day with each other, walking and talking about anything except Erik. Whenever he tried to ask what she did in his house she refused to answer. And when he asked why she always refused, she simply said, "He didn't seem to like you, Raoul. I very much doubt that he would want you talking of him now."

Their wedding, also, she would have no say about. "You may carry on with your plans, Raoul," she told him. "But I am to have no part in them until everything is settled at the House." Whenever she referred to what she did during the week, she always said "at the House," using it as a proper noun, like Heaven or Hell. Yes, a very good analogy, this House that could be Heaven or Hell, depending on how one saw it. Raoul wondered how Christine saw it now.

Her attitude was different also. She was still his sweet, little Christine and he still knew she cared for him, but she had taken to mocking him. When he told her he didn't like it, that it wasn't right, she apologized sincerely but assured him that it was only in fun. Raoul wasn't too sure. Still, she didn't mock him again after that Sunday. 

Then a softer, more tender Christine rose to the surface. It was the Christine he always knew…but she was different somehow. She was prone to sudden fits of laughter that would soon melt into crying for lengths of time. Sometimes he feared that Erik's spirit had entered her and drove her mad. But no, that was impossible…

Then, on Friday of that third week, Raoul was awoken in the middle of the night by a servant informing him of an urgent message. He stumbled down the stairs and into the kitchen, where Christine's maid, Annette sat sobbing. At once he was wide awake as his heart began to beat fast. 

"Annette…what is it?" 

"Mademoiselle is… she's…" The girl tried as hard as she could to stop her sobs. "A policeman came by… there was an accident… Mademoiselle is…dead!"

Raoul felt like he had gotten the wind knocked out of him. "Dead!" he whispered. How?"

"Her carriage crashed and caught on fire. The driver escaped unharmed but Mademoiselle… He said they couldn't even recognize her she was so scarred. But the driver told them who she was…" The girl sobbed once again. 

And that was the end. Raoul went directly to see the police, who told him everything they knew. He even saw the body. Her face was scarred beyond recognition and her hair had been burnt until it reached only her shoulders. But it was undoubtedly Christine. The dress, the color of the hair… That was Christine and she was dead. It was the end.

And Raoul had been strong. He hadn't cried, until today. Today at the funeral, when they put her in the ground. Her burnt body… Perhaps that was how Erik wanted her, ugly, like he was. It was, after all, all his fault.

The casket was in the ground. One by one, the mourners came to throw roses into the grave. How many people there were! Friends, people who worked with her at the Opera, fans…many, many people. But slowly the crowds began to thin and the mourners left slowly, whispering to themselves.

"Such a tragedy…" one said.

"Did you know that she was pregnant?" a girl from the ballet said.

"Yes, and it was the Phantom's child!"

"Isn't it odd?" another said to her companion.

"Well, most people don't get to see their own funerals, Mademoiselle Daae," was the whispered reply.

She turned to face him, pulling her black veil down to hide her face more. "Hush!" she said, a smile playing on her lips. "Mademoiselle Daae is dead. As you are only Erik so I am only Christine. We do not belong to this world any more, but to our very own. Make of it what we may!" With that, she took her companion's arm and the couple walked off together toward an awaiting carriage.

A/N: Do ya love it or do ya hate it? Tell-a me please! The next chapter will reveal all! It's a very short story though, the next chapter will end it.


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